दिन कुछ ऐसे गुज़ारता है कोई

कुछ रोज़ से वक़्त कुछ यूं गुज़ारा जाता है - शाम को उठना, तनिक चहलकदमी उपरांत काम की कोशिश और जबड़ा फैलाए, लार टपकाते, इंतज़ार में बैठे मौत के घंटे से (जो मई के अंत में बजने के मूड में है) चंद लम्हे चुरा कर नागराज और ध्रुव के रोमांचक कारनामों का लुत्फ़ उठाना और उनके भीषण पराक्रम और धमधमात्मक लड़ाइयों का; और महामानव, त्रिमुंड और ड्रैकुला सरीखे मंजे हुए दर-शैतान खलनायकों के चीर हरण और मान मर्दन का ऐसे कुछ लम्पट ब्लॉग पोस्ट्स में बखान करना.
...

ये पोस्ट निम्न कॉमिक्सों के अध्ययन के आधार पर लिखी गयी हैं:
१) परकाले
२) ज़लज़ला
३) ड्रैकुला का अंत
...

'धमधमात्मक' नामक शब्द का कोई अस्तित्व नहीं है. (लेकिन चूंकि सुनने में सॉलिड लगता है इसलिए इसका ऐसा इस्तेमाल किया गया, जैसा इस्तेमाल किया गया.)
...

पांडू/सत्यव्रत का नया हिंदी ब्लॉग ज़रूर देखें - सॉलिड कवितायें. ज़ीरो लम्पटगीरी.

लिंक.

Miniscule Musings

There is a scene in Shutter Island in which the warden (a cameo of sorts played by Ted Levine who is more famous for flashing his dick and skinning his victims as the serial killer Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs) and DiCaprio ride in a jeep and have a little talk about violence. The jeep is ambling through the woods as Ted Levine leans over and conspiratorially remarks how similar the two of them are - how they're both 'men of violence' and relish this streak in themselves. There is considerable menace in his voice - a hint of vast reserves of physical energy just barely held in control by his better sense, to be unleashed with considerable pleasure at the slightest opportunity that walks around and decides to present itself. The warden is aware of the enjoyment he derives from blood and finds in DiCaprio an accomplice that shares the guilty pleasure in much the same way. There is considerable understated violence and hint of some big, impending disaster in the sinister smile and casual wink directed at DiCaprio - insinuating some deep, profound, primal connection between them - the kind that is prized precisely because it's so rare - the elusive bond that blood brothers, soulmates, mystics et al. claim to share.

DiCaprio is horrified at the thought and yet by the end of the scene indicates his willingness to flex his muscles and not back down from the fight if the warden were foolish enough to initiate one. "Attaboy", the warden's response seems to say. DiCaprio gets out of the jeep and walks away. It could've easily been the best scene of the film.

The theme of not backing down and never running away from a physical fight is a somewhat recurring theme throughout the movie ("You've never backed down from a fight haven't you?", remarks the German doctor (played by Max von Sydow) when they first meet in Ben Kingsley's mansion) which theme's supposed to reinforce in the audience an appreciation of the gritty, hard, tough, (if-need-be)-more-violent-than-you-can-imagine motherfucker DiCaprio's character's supposed to portray. And herein lies the biggest flaw the film - the miscasting of DiCaprio as the gentle-outside-but-uberviolent-beast-lurking-inside character that his persona just doesn't reflect at all. The entire (tongue-in-cheek one might say) premise of the film - it might just be better to die a good man than stay alive a monster - relies fundamentally on DiCaprio's characterization as the monster.

Make no mistake about it - DiCaprio is a great actor. For those who've been his sworn enemies ever since Titanic came out need to look at his absolutely brilliant role in the film The Basketball Diaries (orders of magnitude better than his more celebrated Oscar nominated role in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?). DiCaprio was, before the superstardom of Titanic, with good reason, an indie sensation. He's himself conceded that perhaps rather than Titanic, he should've acted in the abso-fucking-lutely awesome Boogie Nights by the brilliant Paul Thomas Anderson. In particular, he is able to evoke the hallucination enforced loneliness and intense sense of loss that his character is haunted by throughout the movie; but for all his awesome acting skill, he just can't fit the part of the monster he's so thrashed out to be. Scorsese has made the little, harmless Joe Pesci far more intimidating and monsterish in his previous flicks.

And so, as Ted Levine gives us a chilly yet casual glimpse into his ambient low-level, loosely chained violent side, we groan and curse him for misjudging the intense, smart, yet fundamentally weak DiCaprio as his counterpart.

Sigh, sigh, sigh.

Deniz is right when she says we don't expect this from Scorsese.

Not-so-brief an Interview with not-so-hideous a Man

David Foster Wallace didn't give out interviews generally; and most of the ones he did end up giving were either print or radio. (Two notable exceptions are the interviews he gave to Charlie Rose.) So to see him respond to questions on screen was a rare privilege. (However, such intimate/direct knowledge of people whom you love/idolize in a somewhat blind, larger-than-life way can sometimes be a rather jarring experience. After having joined the abject-fans-of-Nirmal-Verma cult, Nanga Fakir was jolted to hear his voice reading a passage from one of his books. His voice was weak, pathetic and old-womanish - not the rich Gulzarish baritone NF had hoped it would've been.)

So when Nanga Fakir came across the 84 minute youtube interview of the (erstwhile) saddest person on earth, he watched it with a little hesitation. Let's just say that he was not in the least disappointed.

The interview is conducted by a German team and the interviewer is a girl with a thin, squeaky voice (who gives the impression of being blonde, thin, studentsy and a little on the plainer side) and is overawed by the interviewee. The interviewee is a nerdy/geeky looking mental titan, incredibly shy and self conscious and nervous and mindful of his own self consciousness and obvious unease that he exudes in front of the camera. He's also very honest and earnest and is very much uneasy when the interviewer asks him big, grand philosophical questions (Cf. first question: "Do you think humor comes out of something sad or is it a cliché?"). DFW's is aghast that such questions are being put to him. He twitches, bares his fangs and grits his teeth. Intense surprise contorts his face and yet, to his credit, he decides to answer such questions in all seriousness⁰.

To see for yourself, here's the screenshot of the guy when this question's put to him:

The screenshot above is funny. DFW's face gives the impression of a deflated balloon. And yet, time and again, as these questions are put to him, and as he gets ready to answer them honestly and in detail, a spasm of painful contortion zaps his face. He repeatedly asks, full of self doubt and misgiving after each such answer: "Does that make any sense to you?", "You're not going to use that for the interview are you?", "I doubt if it makes much sense." and "I can hear in my head a voice making fun of this stuff.". It is clear that the problem of meaningful communication among humans comes to the fore here - something that David Foster Wallace has written about numerous times. He refers to it in the interview also when talking about the purpose of good art and how it helps one consciousness transcend its being trapped in a body and reach and enter another, howsoever fleetingly. Hence his response "Since it can't be talked about directly, we need to make up stories about it."

However, the best thing about the interview (apart from the fact that it is one of the really rare pictures/video of the man without a bandanna and long hair) is that it is uncut. So you can see the microphones being set and the off camera crew passing off-hand comments on DFW's on-screen persona (in one such encounter an off camera voice jibes - "You're pontificating" to which DFW rolls his eyes over and says "Yeah, yeah") and the clear discomfort of David Foster Wallace at being treated like an important "writer".

Here's the first part (of ten) of the interview on youtube.



One wishes the son of a bitch hadn't killed himself!

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0.

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DFW's (eventual) response to this question:

"I know that Wittgenstein believed that the most serious and profound problems and questions can be discussed only in the form of jokes.", and

"There are forms of humor that offer escape from pain and there are forms of humor that...transfigure pain. Does that make any sense?"

आगंतुक

Nanga Fakir will visit Lucknow from 26th December to 26th January. He enjoins all those who can, to take time some time out and pay him a visit.

लिटगीरी रीडक्स

Lit links:

1. The Use of Poetry : An excerpt from the latest Ian McEwan novel about a fictional Nobel Prize winning physicist Michael Beard. Read this to experience first-hand, the sheer breathtaking awesomeness that McEwan's prose is. From one of the foremost writers of our times. Totally killer!
2. Midnight in Dostoyevsky : Don DeLillo is currently the reigning lit grandmaster of American literature. This somewhat longish, eight page story set in the blistery upstate New York winter about two lonely, intensely competitve students, a mysterious old man and a logic professor who reads Dostoyevsky day and night needs to be read. Nay, demands to be read.
3. All That : And yes, our very own David Foster Wallace!

Recommended Setting/Background/Ambient Sound: The epic 19 minute Farm Aid '98 version of Down by The River by Neil Young and Phish.

...

Yes, you are welcome!

Phishing for Words

Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod...

Link 1

Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod...

Link 2

Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod...



OOOOOOOOOOhmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod Ohmygod...

Link

Link to the story 'Stalker' that NF penned a few months ago.

(Warning: Is long and unfunny and sometimes takes itself too seriously. Story content is softcore-pornish. )

Recent Musical Adventures

Buddy Guy and BB King (August 29th '09): The King has gotten old. His teeth are falling, he's going senile and probably has attacks of debilitatingly intense incontinence. The seventy-or-something-minute performance on the slowly rotating stage was half hearted at best. It included lots of boring conversational pieces about music, beauty and love to the accompaniment of a staid rhythm that could have been generated by drowsy amateur musicians on autopilot mode. The angry outbursts ("Shut the fuck up and sing you old man") from a row or two behind confirmed NF's suspicion that this sentiment was shared by many.

Verdict: The thrill is gone. Totally.

Contrast this, however, with the positively brilliant Buddy Guy performance who (technically) "opened" for the grand old man. His remarkable wit, sharp humor, awe-inspiring stage presence⁰ and excellent song selection confirm his stature as the best Blues musician alive today. So much charisma in a seventy three year old in a loose shirt and polka dotted guitar is unfair - obscenely so.

Porcupine Tree (Sep 24th '09): Nanga Fakir had been taken in by the awesomeness of the band when he was in 3rd year in S'kal and PP had come one arbit day to announce his latest favorite rock fetish. "Arriving Somewhere..." had been a bolt from the blue from which Nanga Fakir, in some sense, never completely recovered¹.

The concert was at Terminal 5. Despite a couple of setbacks², Nanga Fakir managed to enjoy the show which comprised mostly of songs from the new album - a decidedly heavier sounding record, it's melody notwithstanding. Right now, NF opines that Porcupine Tree are one of the very few bands at the extreme frontier of heavy-metal-fused-with-progressive-tendencies that are able to maintain a semblance of melody in the presence of heavy and harsh sounding guitar work. Much of that credit must go to the frontman Steve Wilson's mellow and somewhat dreamy, mellifluous voice.

An out and out excellent concert but for the presence of the random bastard who kept shouting Free Bird after the end of each piece.

Indian Ocean (October 09th '09): At Times Square's B.B. King's Blues Club & Grill. Credit goes to Somnath Pal for bringing the concert to NF's notice which he attended with a friend from the nearby Rutgers University (which by the way, is supposedly one of the most boring places on earth). The great John Turturro, apparently a big Indian Ocean fan was in attendance somewhere in the dark hall.

As is usual with their concerts, Indian Ocean impressed with their improvised jams, their new songs (yes! finally) and their rather bawdy, in-your-face and rustic brand of humor³. The funniest thing was the presence of white chicks in search for an exotic Indian sounding band that they could put up as their latest new authentic musical discovery on Facebook. Nanga Fakir had a hard time controlling his laughter as they swayed/swung their heavy round asses to the sounds of Hille Re.

Among other, relatively minor adventures are the Friday night Jazz Jam sessions in the University Cafe and the Mongolian throat singing concert that The Horse (who's name has now been changed to 'Sama') took NF to.

The final stage of this series of adventures includes NF's killing blow - his upcoming appearance at Phish's reunion concert on 2nd December in Madison Square Garden!

The most breathtaking, the most versatile and definitely the best band of the '90s - Phish had blown NF away when he was in the seventh block in his 3rd year in S'kal. He had recently discovered the Grateful Dead and had overheard some conversation in which Phish were compared to the Dead. An immediate download of songs followed by an instant conversion to their cult had happened. Now with the benefit of hindsight, NF can definitely assert that although Phish must have started out as a major Grateful Dead inspired group, not only did they find their own voice totally distinct from The Dead, but in fact, they beat Dead at their own game - long improvisational jams that seem to continue forever (especially if you were high on grass).

Their break-up in 2004 had brought on an existential crisis for a lot of their phans⁴ including Nanga Fakir who gave up hoping to ever see them together. But the fat lady sang, and sang far better than Susan Boyle. And how Grateful are their Dead Phans to see them back!

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0. Actually "stage presence" is technically a misnomer since he jumped around so much - frequently running up the rows, coming back down, going off again - all while doing his guitaring calisthenics Hendrix ultimately got so famous for.

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1. Porcupine Tree is the last great rock band NF got hooked on to (along with Radiohead). After that, his musical education came to a standstill. Despite entreaties by juniors and fellow music geeks to follow Opeth, Tool or Death Cab for Cutie, NF has felt too sapped and enervated to follow any band in earnest ever since.

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2. A couple of friends NF went with were thrown out of the venue for drunken/disorderly behavior; how NF survived is another story altogether. He claims his impeccable behavior and extraordinary tact and cool saved his ass. But we know enough to not believe him when he talks about himself, don't we?

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3. Quote-Unquote: (Translated from the street-level Hindi they usually speak)

"Next year we'll play at Carnegie Hall. But we probably won't see you there (since you won't be invited?). (Nudge-nudge-wink-wink.) <*Oohs and aahs from the audience*>. But for you, we'll be back next September at this same place. How about that?"

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4. The comparisons with the Grateful Dead are long and well reasoned. Just like the Dead, Phish had a huge community of fans who would follow them around on tours and these dedicated, hardcore followers, had a special name (the Deadheads in the case of Grateful Dead) - Phans.

Yay!

Nanga Fakir's science fiction story "Stalker" wins the first prize in the Scientific Indian's Science Fiction story writing contest.

Link.

Thanks to Mons_thaa, Garnet, Ranaji, Tejo, Ra, Agent, Man and Somnath Pal.

Fuck the Police!

(Click for a bigger size)
(Courtesy: Vatsa)



PS: Probably photoshopped.

Life Under the New Regime - 3

Nanga Fakir has probably run out of clever, meaningful, witty, smart, funny or even interesting things to say. So he planned to put out a last, final, somewhat maudlin, self indulgent, morosey post announcing the quiet demise of this space. Procrastination intervened however. And a little later, NF decided to not take himself seriously after all.

The adventures of the book junkie continue well - even in the face of deadlines, crises of all shapes and sizes and just plain old routine work. For keeping up with this rather unfriendly and reclusion-inducing habit, (which most of his old friends who shared the same passion for reading in their younger, halcyon years at S'kal (AK, Pandu, Ra, Subbu...) or perhaps even earlier at school (Somnath, Man...) have rather readily shed) Nanga Fakir would like to formally pat himself on the back.

<*pat, pat, pat*>

Reading continues to be a source of delight. NF's eyes have got keener, more discerning. His playlists continue to grow in quantity and quality, in the girth of the volumes and the width of the subject matter, in fiction and in non-fiction, in style and in substance. Technical details at the sentence and the word level, the idiosyncrasies of form and content, the art's heart's purpose - speak to NF in low, hushed voices, laying bare the mechanics of communication, fueling the communion (albeit one sided) of ideas. And the benefits are not merely theoretical/abstract⁰.

Recent Lit Adventures:

The Road: Lit giant Cormac McCarthy's unanimously celebrated Pulitzer grabbing post-apocalyptic saga hailed by some to be the most depressing book ever. NF loved the book and its ultra minimal style. But the most depressing book ever? No fucking way. Just a very good read. Nothing earth-shatteringly saddening.

Nausea: NF had tried to read this so-called Jean Paul Sartre existential masterpiece three times previously but had failed spectacularly at each try. Then he read some random remark by David Foster Wallace in one of his non-fiction pieces saying it's a work of genius, clenched his fists and ground his teeth in grim determination and forced himself to read it. Verdict? It's a damn fine book. Only too reader-unfriendly - like some early version of Linux dreamed up by a sadist geek. If you're patient enough and have nothing better to do, go through the much hailed novel. (Spoiler?) There is an Aha! moment at the end of the book. And a real one at that.

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men: No-one writes fiction quite the way David Foster Wallace does - as ecstatically, with as much self consciousness, with as much breathlessness, with as much black humor, with as much style. His incredible attention to detail - in descriptions as much as in the style of writing, just plain brilliant subject matter and the insistence of addressing the important, universal and grabbing-you-by-the-balls-and-demanding-an-immediate-answer-type questions have made a lifelong fan out of Nanga Fakir.

The Depressed Person, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men #2, Octet, Suicide as a Sort of Present and Brief Interviews with Hideous Men #4 are just plain gems of short stories. NF plans to read this book again. And again. And maybe again.

When Infinite Jest had come out, a lot of people had compared David Foster Wallace's style of writing as similar to Nabokov's. Naturally, once NF was converted, his hunter instincts led him to Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. A hundred pages into the book, Nanga Fakir can totally dig why such claims of similarity were made. It manifests in the attention to detail, the delightful wordplay, the abso-fucking-lutely delectable prose and the location of humor in the most unlikely places. The way Nabokov bends and commands the English language and makes an abject slave out of it is simply jaw dropping. Read it to experience this feeling first hand. And on top of this, the transformation of the adventures of such a borderline pedophilic protagonist as Humbert Humbert into a hilarious comedy is a truly non trivial achievement for a belletrist of any order.

And so Nanga Fakir trudges on, slowly, patiently, painstakingly - reading for half an hour, one and sometimes on good, easy, relaxed days, two-three-four (or more!) hours. It's lucky to be taken up so much by some overarching, engrossing activity that holds your attention and trusses you up in a warm, glowing blanket of self sufficient happiness.

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0. Quote-Unquote:

<*the first floor lobby History Honors Society's book sale. NF with two books in hand - The Best American Short Stories 1986 (Edited by Raymond Carver and featuring stars of the lit firmament like Donald Barthelme, Ann Beattie, David Lipsky, Alice Munro and Tobias Wolff) and Alice Mary Hilton's Logic, Computing Machines and Automation*>

NF: I heard that there's some buy one get one free offer or something?
The (presumably) History Grad Student: <*eyes NF fixedly*> To himself: Who bargains at a book-for-a-buck sale? (Ans: Indian.)
Aloud: Not really. You get one free if you answer a history trivia.
NF: Shoot.
The (presumably) History Grad Student: Where was Josef Stalin born?
NF: <*sports a big grin*>
The (presumably) History Grad Student: <*notices the grin. grins back*>
NF: It's a rather trivial question.
The (presumably) History Grad Student: You think so? The answer might be tricky.
NF: He was born in Georgia.
The (presumably) History Grad Student: Whoa man! You're good.
NF: Can I answer another one and have both of them for free?
The (presumably) History Grad Student: No. You can't.

खूनी खोपड़ी जाग उठी!

दो हफ्ते से सुशुप्त, मूर्छित खूनी खोपड़ी⁰ अंततोगत्वा आज जाग उठी. विकिपीडिया के विरह में लबालब भरी अश्रु-संचित बाल्टियों को नंगा फ़कीर ने उल्लासित चित्त से विदा किया.

निश्चय ही, भगवान् के घर देर है, अंधेर नहीं.

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0. नंगा फ़कीर के लैपटॉप का नाम.

Sympathy

There is no sight in the world as singularly heartbreaking, as incredibly saddening, as that of an obese girl in the Romance section of a bookstore.

Ninja Tips for Healthy Living

<*Nods to Garnet for the great gift!*>

• Exercise is important but jogging is for wimps. Plenty of exercise can be had leaping bushes and kicking joggers in the head.
• Laughter is medicine. Ninjas practice the art of inappropriate laughter. Laughing when hearing about cancer also shows the ninja's strength.
• Ninjas occasionally, without warning, stab friends in their faces with dirty, blunt knives. Life is random. Ninjas embrace this fact of life.
• Killing the wrong person happens. Ninjas know this. It's useless to live in the past.
• Everyone knows yoga classes are filled with women. Ninjas prove their skill and impress women by killing off the yoga instructor.
• Samurais are the source of much stress for ninjas. They think they're sooo cool with their armor and swords and awesome helmets. It is in a ninja's best interest to not think about such things.
• When eating the still beating hearts of their enemies, ninjas eat it all. For every one such lucky ninja, there are ten in Africa who don't have any hearts to eat.
• Cleanliness is important. If ninjas get ketchup stains on their outfit when eating out, they throw smoke pellets and teleport, only to appear outside their den where they burn their besmirched outfits.
• Theoretical mind control is one of the most powerful ninja sciences. Applied mind control involves inducing small children to give you their money.
• It's good for ninjas to treat themselves to occasional Western pleasures. That's why it's okay to put on a clean ninja outfit, light candles and watch "Ninja Vixens: Virgin Nightmares".

Nuggets of (Questionable) Wisdom

<*Nanga Fakir makes a faux-sad face, buries his head in his hands, makes a show of being in terrible, agonising pain, whines and lets out a low moan*>

NF: This is not cool. Not cool.

The Horse: <*stares blankly*>

NF: I am hungry. I don't want to move. Not cool.

The Horse: <*stares blankly*>

NF: You know...there should be a machine, which when you snap your fingers and say "Me hungry...need food" should automatically make brilliant dishes come out of thin air.

The Horse: <*stares blankly; smiles*>

NF: Huh.

The Horse: That machine is called a girlfriend.

Drinkers of the World, Unite!

So NF has, for some time now, been busy enjoying the company of his new best friend from Mongolia who, as it turns out, needed a little help in Angreji. NF has been known to have done this left, right and center all through his waking life (and has scores of SOPs to his credits) and through the passage of time, has begun to enjoy this rather unearned power that summary comments, editorial executions (and flourishes) and condescending tones explaining why 'a troubled dream' is better than 'uneasy dreams', grants him over others. (See link: Nabokov edits Kafka.) His latest continuing fascination with Inglourious Basterds played a pivotal role in framing the style of this ESLish essay.

So without further ado, here's the speech NF coached (and coaxed!) the guy into delivering.

Something Interesting About Myself

I am happy to be here speaking to you as part of the assignment. Since the topic for the assignment is “Something interesting about myself”, I will talk about my fascination with alcohol.

1) Chapter 1: Drinking Experiences in Mongolia

I come from Mongolia where winters are very cold and summers warm. So it is very important for the survival of people to eat large quantities of meat and drink a lot of alcohol. In particular, I especially miss the local Mongolian drink “Airag” which is made from the milk of mares and the drink “Arhi” which is a specialty drink made from yogurt. I drank often and in large quantities and enjoyed my time in Mongolia before moving to Japan. However, my favorite drink in Mongolia was not a local flavor, but Vodka which is extremely popular there.

Chapter 2: Drinking Experiences in Japan

I moved to Japan for higher education and stayed there for seven years. I lived in Tokyo and this was the first time that I got a chance to appreciate more popular and famous drinks. It is in Japan that I first drank whiskey, beer, rum, gin, tequila, wine and others. I also acquired a taste for the local Japanese drink "Sake" which is made from rice.

Chapter 3: Drinking Experiences while traveling

I have visited South Korea, Hungary, Czech Republic, Taiwan, China, Russia and Hong Kong among other places. And I made sure that during every visit to a foreign country I found time to taste the finest local brands of alcohol. So I am proud to say that I developed a taste for Korean sake ("makgeolli"), Hungarian wine, chose among 5000 different kinds of Czech beers, enjoyed "Choujiu" – a Chinese wine and authentic Russian vodka while I was visiting these countries.

Chapter 4: Drinking Experiences in America

I arrived in USA a month ago and was pleasantly surprised to see a good variety of American beer and wine in the Orientation ceremony. Within this short span, I have been able to, along with my Indian friends, taste many local beers, scotch and vodka. I have also recently added Indian Whiskey to my list of drinking experiences.

I look forward to more opportunities of traveling and discovering more varieties of drinks worldwide. In the end I would like to invite all those interested to join me in my quest for development of more advanced tastes in alcohols of all varieties.

Thank you.

Quote-Unquote:

<*NF, Mota and Vatsa huddle expectantly around The Horse (as he's fondly called) and ask how the speech went*>

The Horse: The students loved the speech. The teacher...<*hunts for words...*> so...so.

Poetic Justice

Brilliant link here: Link

Nanga Fakir didn't know this guy very well (how glad he is on that account!) but second order reports from friends and juniors who were unfortunate enough to have first order dealings with him made his blood boil with rage. Hence the unconcealed glee!

Burn motherfucker. Burn!

Life Under the New Regime - 2: (It's been ages)

It has been ages since NF saw a film. Any film. (He did catch up on Kaminay (which he thought was fantastic), District 9 and Inglourious Basterds and some old Hitchcock numbers like the excellent Shadow of a Doubt and Notorious and mandatory reruns of Andaz Apna Apna every fortnight or so but this is a far cry from his previous awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping, ball-crushing bouts of movie-mania in which he would sit for hours and devour one film after another.)

It has also been ages since NF read. Anything. Either fiction or non-fiction. He's formed a habit of reading himself off to sleep for a long time now and that's about the only reading he's been doing for quite some time. (No prizes for guessing which book. It's the Infinite Jest tome. A couple of pages are heavy enough to induce sleep in even the most chronically insomnia-ravaged patients.) That and some light, fast David Foster Wallace short stories while traveling. Not much, given NF's formidable past reading record.

It has been ages since NF listened to some good music. Any genre. (The last major outing was his unexpected guest appearance at the Chicago Blues Festival with a mug of beer in hand. That and being witness to Blues legends Buddy Guy and BB King a month ago in concert.) He's been trying to appreciate a little Jazz (Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald in particular) but opines that Jazz's perhaps more of an acquired taste than Blues.

It had been ages since he worked. Hard. However, these days somehow grind themselves away at work rather than at other pursuits. Staring at blackboards full of arcane expressions, trying to make sense out of Mickey Mouse models and taking life a little more seriously seem to be the order of the day. (Not much to his liking, we say in his defense though.)

It has been ages since he's felt so creative. NF feels almost a sense of a natural high as he trudges along home late at night from work day after day. Lines from Maggie's Farm ("I've got a head full of ideas that are driving me insane") seem to take NF by the scruff of his scrawny neck and whisper secret words of wisdom in his ears. Sometimes their power is such that he has to go away somewhere alone, clutch his head hard and do two or three short, but intense pelvic thrusts and let off screams of "Ouu...Ouu-Ouu" to relieve the mind-boggling mental pressure that's crushing the poor little sod under its weight.

If you ask him seriously though, he'll shrug his shoulders a little, throw his goggles up in the air à la Rajnikant (where they'll joggle and somersault a little and give out classy "woosh-woosh" sounds and sit right atop his nose-bridge), give a corny thumbs up and say "I don't mind it at all."

Quote-Unquote⁰:

NF: <*slightly tipsy perhaps*> Fine. Life is meaningless. So you just proved the problem is NP hard. Now what are you going to do with it? Acting cool, jaded, blasé, superior and invoking the meaninglessness of life as a justification for the aforementioned behavior is the same as (read isomorphic to) feeling satisfied and smug about the helplessness that the intractability of the problem induces. You've gotta fucking come up with a provable, well functioning heuristic. That's what's non trivial. That's what a True Ninja would do.

Listener: Dude, you've had too much. You better sleep.

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0. Another one of those flashes that NF's been having so many of of late, good enough to be included in a separate "Nuggets of Wisdom" series.

Life Under the New Regime

Imagine the human lip as a two dimensional geometrical figure. View it in isolation - an abstract, mathematical shape. Now locate its center. Imagine the X and Y axes passing through the center in the usual, orthogonal, Cartesian way. Consider the part of the lip in the first quadrant (x>0 and y>0). Now imagine what happens to this part when it is hit hard by a squash racket in the dying arcs of a full-blooded swing.⁰

The first-quadrant-lip develops a stubborn tumescence in response to developments it must've not really liked. The swelling just tumbles out spontaneously, outflanking its counterpart in a remarkably uncool, hideous way. The whole appearance is not unlike that of a lip recently bee stung. Smiling and laughing become searingly painful; the promise of food, a panic inducing, all too matter-of-fact suffering.

Life under the new regime also involves dutiful, painstaking study of Infinite Jest (again) and a slavish devotion to all things David Foster Wallace (the short story collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and Oblivion being duly acquired and lovingly gazed at everyday) - including shameless pastiches such as this.¹

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0. This may be analyzed in the following two main parts:

a) The primary impact of the synthetic, boron coated outer frame of the racket on the first-quadrant-lip which cuts the skin and leaves a deep reddish bruise on the upper lip.

b) The secondary (and the more devastating) encounter between the inside of what the first-quadrant-lip is the outside of and its dragging and grinding motion against the razor sharp, mucronate canine tooth - all while the racket frame on the outside is tearing through the sturdy, unyielding epithelial tissue in a way reminiscent of Shakti Kapoor&Gulshan Grover's tearing through the Clothes of the Hero's Sister in the quintessential mainstream '80s Hindi film.

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1.

Don't steal. But if you have to steal, steal from the best.

(Woody Allen)

Brief Interviews...

Interrogator: So...what do you want to do...after this?

NF: I dunno...I guess I kinda like teaching...
Interrogator: Uh huh...so you're gonna hang around universities and shit?
NF: I guess so.
Interrogator: How's that man? You like teaching and all?
NF: <*shrugs noncommittally*> I guess I just like sucking young blood.